


Safety net.

by palmettomonsters (queentangerine)



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:23:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8005576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queentangerine/pseuds/palmettomonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Andrew is shaken from a not-so-bad dream and contemplates his life choices.<br/>((aka, post-graduation, pre-long-distance, and andrew feels compelled to wear his armbands even though there's no one around but neil.))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety net.

_Okay_ is a tricky feeling, because this state of neither good nor bad exists on uneven ground, and it’s too easy to trip and fall off the edge of the world. To think it took so little as a dream about homemade ice cream is almost as unsettling to Andrew as the falling itself.

The damn dream even kept him down when Neil got up and left for a run without him. Were Andrew in his right mind, the shift of the mattress would have woken him.

He’s getting sloppy, he’s getting careless, weak, and something resembling content, and his guard is crumbling.

Andrew drags himself out of bed. He showers. The pale lines crisscrossing his forearms keep catching his eye even in this shitty bathroom lighting. He can’t look at them without making a fist. As soon as he’s out from under the water he goes straight for his armbands and slips them onto his still wet skin.

When Neil gets back from his run, Andrew’s smoking out the bedroom window. Outside is not an option today. He needs the A/C at his back. The heat of July in Colombia, or anywhere in South Carolina, is the brutal sort that doesn’t take kindly to a double layer of long sleeves.

The open window is more for show than anything, the light breeze carrying most of the smoke back inside. Oh well. He tried. Neil, energized instead of exhausted from his run, leans against the wall in the direct path of the smoke-wind and inhales. “Yes or no?“

Andrew shoots a sidelong glance at Neil’s smiling face, his flushed skin and sweaty hair. “You’re gross. Take a shower.”

Neil laughs, because yes, of course, this should have been his first stop, but he is perpetually an idiot, thanks, Andrew, for looking out for me.

He says, “You could join me.“

“I’ve already showered.”

“Hmm. The shower is good for other things.“

Andrew doesn’t roll his eyes, but it’s a close call.

“For one -” Neil reaches out and plucks at Andrew’s sleeve “- less fabric and more water would cool you off. You look - “ He stops, because the sleeve has ridden up from his tugging, exposing more black fabric beneath.

Andrew acknowledges nothing, not even when Neil wraps his fingers loosely around his wrist, thumb tracing the bottom edge of the armband.

“Hey,” he says, and when Andrew doesn’t pull away, his slips his thumb beneath the fabric. “Why are you wearing these? It’s just us here.”

Because it’s been a few years and Andrew doesn’t hide from Neil anymore. But this isn’t about Neil. Not exactly.

“Ice cream would cool me off, too.” If Andrew wasn’t so genius at keeping his emotions under wraps he would have flinched. The bridge is out; there should have been a sign. He’s never eating ice cream again. Why did he say that.

“It’s ten in the morning,” Neil says, stroking his thumb back and forth. “Andrew.“

Andrew takes a long drag from his cigarette and goes to stub it out on the window sill, but aborts the motion halfway and hands it to Neil instead.

“I don’t want to see them,” he says, and walks away.

These the reminders of the weakness that could have killed him. But then there’s this, the thing that is no longer nothing that could do the same. The former, he can hide, but the later, he’s become dependent on it being somewhere in his field of vision, within his reach, no farther than other end of a cell phone, even if they tended to leave the lines silent. Andrew can’t stop thinking about what will happen in a few months when the phone will be all that’s left. The safety net fastened just below the cliff’s edge.

He pauses by the door because he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go, and he turns just enough to watch from the corner of his eye as Neil takes a quick secondhand drag from the cigarette before stubbing it out himself.

Neil crosses the room to stand a foot in front of him, and Andrew waits. Because Neil can’t ask _are you okay_ or _what’s wrong_ because Andrew won’t answer those questions.

So he settles on, “Is there something I can do?”

Andrew nods. “Shower.“

Of course, Neil wants to say something more, it’s what he does, but in a surprising show of self-restraint, he bites it down and heads to the bathroom. Andrew doesn’t move until he hears the water running, and then he makes breakfast. Sort of. He heats up yesterday’s coffee and gathers the things needed for cereal and puts them on the table, two settings across from each other. He waits. He eats. By the time Neil returns from his shower, Andrew has somewhat conceded to the heat. The bands still cover his forearms, but he’s pushed the sleeves of his shirt up past his elbows.

Neil’s hair is still dripping. He’s wearing a pair of gym shorts and nothing else, his own scars in full view. Andrew knows what Neil is trying to do but that doesn’t mean he has to let it work. Neil pauses and eyes the place setting across from Andrew, and then he drags the bowl and chair around to sit next to him instead.

Andrew keeps his eyes on his empty bowl and plays with his pack of cigarettes for something to do. Neil eats with one hand and holds the other out towards Andrew’s.

Andrew does nothing. Then he hands him the cigarettes.

“Thanks.” Neil puts them on the table, out of reach, and holds his hand back out and keeps it there. It must be uncomfortable, poised loosely in the air above Andrew’s hands, now pressed flat on the table. Andrew imagines awkward wrist cramps, and does nothing to save Neil from them.

Neil’s patience holds until he needs his hand to pour himself a second bowl of cereal, and then reaches back out, this time saying, “Andrew. Yes or no?”

See, the problem is, when actually presented with only these two, very clear options, the answer isn’t no. It rarely is. This is the weakness that’s destroying the foundation, turning it into quicksand.

Andrew says, “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full,” and turns his hand over to thread their fingers together.

“Can’t say it made the list of priorities.“

Andrew still won’t look at him, but he knows Neil is smiling. This is the weakness but it’s also his grip on the cliff’s edge, as strong or as weak as either of them lets it be. That’s the catch. But he’s being paranoid.

Andrew thinks he might feel a little better. He feels _okay_ again, gripping Neil’s hand tighter. He’d had a dream about making homemade ice cream with Cass and for the two minutes he hovered between asleep and awake, he missed her and the life he never really had. Too easy to jump from that to how much it would hurt to lose something he did have, something he wanted so much more than the missed hypothetical. Even though he’d made it his business not to want anything, he tripped and fell off one of those unsuspected edges and now all he can do is hold on with everything he has.

**Author's Note:**

> this also exists on my [tumblr.](http://www.palmettomonsters.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
> ~~i changed like three words from that version b/c i have _problems_.~~


End file.
